List of cognitive biases

Cognitive bias describes the inherent thinking errors that humans make in processing information.
Some of these have been verified empirically in the field of psychology, while others are considered general categories of bias. These thinking errors prevent one from accurately understanding reality, even when confronted with all the needed data and evidence to form an accurate view. Many conflicts between science and religion are due to cognitive biases preventing people from coming to the same conclusions with the same evidence. Cognitive bias is intrinsic to human thought, and therefore any systematic system of acquiring knowledge that attempts to describe reality must include mechanisms to control for bias or it is inherently invalid.

The best known system for vetting and limiting the consequences of cognitive bias is the scientific method, as it places evidence and methodology behind the idea under open scrutiny. By this, many opinions and separate analyses can be used to compensate for the bias of any one individual. It is important to remember, however, that in every day life, just knowing about these biases doesn't necessarily free you from them.[1]

Unacceptability bias - questions that may embarrass or invade privacy are refused or evaded.

Unit bias — the tendency to want to finish a given unit of a task or an item with strong effects on the consumption of food in particular

Von Restorff effect — the tendency for an item that "stands out like a sore thumb" to be more likely to be remembered than other items.

Zero-risk bias — the preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk. It is relevant e.g. to the allocation of public health resources and the debate about nuclear power.

Conjunction fallacy — the tendency to assume that specific conditions are more probable than general ones.

Frequency illusion - the phenomenon in which people who just learn or notice something start seeing it everywhere. Also known as the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.[5]

Gambler's fallacy — the tendency to assume that individual random events are influenced by previous random events. For example, "I've flipped heads with this coin five times consecutively, so the chance of tails coming out on the sixth flip is much greater than heads."

Hindsight bias — sometimes called the "I-knew-it-all-along" effect: the inclination to see past events as being predictable, based on knowledge of later events.

Hostile media effect — the tendency to perceive news coverage as biased against your position on an issue.

Illusory correlation — beliefs that inaccurately suppose a relationship between a certain type of action and an effect.

Ludic fallacy — the analysis of chance related problems with the narrow frame of games. Ignoring the complexity of reality, and the non-gaussian distribution of many things.

Neglect of prior base rates effect — the tendency to fail to incorporate prior known probabilities which are pertinent to the decision at hand.

Observer-expectancy effect — when a researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find it (see also subject-expectancy effect).

Optimism bias — the systematic tendency to be over-optimistic about the outcome of planned actions. Found to be linked to the "left inferior frontal gyrus" section of the brain, and disrupting this section of the brain removes the bias. Article summarising this finding

Actor-observer bias — the tendency for explanations for other individual's behaviors to overemphasize the influence of their personality and underemphasize the influence of their situation. This is coupled with the opposite tendency for the self in that one's explanations for their own behaviors overemphasize their situation and underemphasize the influence of their personality. (see also fundamental attribution error).

Dunning-Kruger effect — "...when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, ...they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine."[6] (See also the Lake Wobegon effect, and overconfidence effect).

Egocentric bias — occurs when people claim more responsibility for themselves for the results of a joint action than an outside observer would.

Forer effect (aka Barnum Effect) — the tendency to give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. For example, horoscopes.

False consensus effect — the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them.

Fundamental attribution error — the tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior (see also actor-observer bias, group attribution error, positivity effect, and negativity effect).

Halo effect — the tendency for a person's positive or negative traits to "spill over" from one area of their personality to another in others' perceptions of them (see also physical attractiveness stereotype).

Herd instinct – a common tendency to adopt the opinions and follow the behaviors of the majority to feel safer and to avoid conflict.

Illusion of asymmetric insight — people perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers' knowledge of them.

Illusion of transparency — people overestimate others' ability to know them, and they also overestimate their ability to know others.

Ingroup bias — the tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others they perceive to be members of their own groups.

Just-world phenomenon — the tendency for people to believe that the world is "just" and therefore people "get what they deserve."

Lake Wobegon effect — the human tendency to report flattering beliefs about oneself and believe that one is above average (see also worse-than-average effect, and overconfidence effect).

Notational bias — a form of cultural bias in which a notation induces the appearance of a nonexistent natural law.

Outgroup homogeneity bias — individuals see members of their own group as being relatively more varied than members of other groups.

Projection bias — the tendency to unconsciously assume that others share the same or similar thoughts, beliefs, values, or positions.

Self-serving bias — the tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than failures. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests (see also group-serving bias).

Modesty bias - The tendency to blame failures on oneself while attributing successes to situational factors. Opposite of self-serving bias.

Self-fulfilling prophecy — the tendency to engage in behaviors that elicit results which will (consciously or subconsciously) confirm our beliefs.

System justification — the tendency to defend and bolster the status quo, i.e. existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives disparaged sometimes even at the expense of individual and collective self-interest.

Trait ascription bias — the tendency for people to view themselves as relatively variable in terms of personality, behavior and mood while viewing others as much more predictable.

Ultimate attribution error — A sub-type of the fundamental attribution error above, the ultimate attribution error occurs when negative behavior in one's own group is explained away as circumstantial, but negative behavior among outsiders is believed to be evidence of flaws in character.

↑[1] "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments" Justin Kruger, David Dunning Journal of Personality and Social Psychology volume=77 issue=6 pages=1121–34, 1999